100 Greatest Train Movies

[jeffrey]

In regard to this issue, I was not suprised to see "The Train" in the number one spot, if you like war and trains, this is a really great movie to see. What train movies didn't make the grade? One movie I love is "The Cassandra Crossing", starring Sophia Loren, Richard Harris, Martin Sheen, O.J. Simpson, Lionel Stander. This action packed movie in my opinion should have made the top 100 list.

What other train movies got derailed from the list?

[twhite]

I haven't seen the book yet, but I'm wondering if any of the Hollywood 'historicals' about railroad building in the West got included, like THE IRON HORSE, UNION PACIFIC or DENVER AND RIO GRANDE? 

THE TRAIN is an excellent choice, IMO--a really tight and spectacular WWII film.  Another one that I might have included would have been the fine French film LA BATTAILE DU RAIL about the Maquis interrupting German-occupied French railway movements during the Normany invasion.   Excellent shots of French railway locomotives and equipment and one of the most spectacular (actual) train wrecks I've ever seen.

I'll have to get the book and see what got listed and what didn't.

PS:  I like THE CASSANDRA CROSSING too--a heck of a lot of suspenseful fun.

Tom  

 

[chatanuga]

Haven't gotten the issue yet, but for movies (theatrical) that I've liked:

Silver Streak

Runaway Train

The Train

The Cassandra Crossing

There was also a rather dramatic train scene in Damien: The Omen II.

Two TV movies that I've always liked are Disaster on the Coastliner from 1979 and Runaway! from 1973.

Kevin

[Dakguy201]

One that didn't make the Trains list, but I like is "Tough Guys".  It stars Burt Lancaster, Kurt Douglas and SP 4449!

[garyla]

The book is well done, with a synopsis for each movie written by a film guy, and railroad notes from the staff of Kalmbach.

Up front, there's a big shot of Spencer Tracy in the California desert, standing at a grade crossing on the old SP Jawbone line between Lone Pine and Owenyo.  It's from Bad Day at Black Rock and is probably worth the price of the book all by itself.  By the way, I checked and this filming location is already tagged on Google Earth.

[twhite]

Hmmm--

Now I'm beginning to wonder.  BAD DAY AT BLACK ROCK is an excellent film, but except for the opening and closing sequences, it's not really ABOUT trains--though the opening sequence of the SP passenger train under the credits is certainly well photographed--. 

I was given to understand that the book would consist of films mainly CONCERNED with trains, not just trains as an 'incidental' dramatic device to the rest of the film. 

Now I'm REALLY curious about the contents. 

Tom

[Bruce Kelly]

As noted by others here and previously, there's a big difference between the 100 greatest railroad movies and the 100 greatest movies which happen to have railroads in them. Bad Day at Black Rock indeed falls into the latter, as should the Jerry Lewis & Dean Martin comedy Living It Up. Both movies were produced in the mid-1950s by major studios using what were then state-of-the-art motion picture techniques: Cinemascope for Bad Day, Technicolor for Living. The result in both cases are brief moments of vivid, vintage SP and ATSF action, but not much else for railfans.

Same thing could be said for Them! and its scenes of switch jobs working along the L.A. River (same area where Roy Scheider later landed his helicopter in the path of an approaching local in Blue Thunder), or for Steven Spielberg's Duel and its shots of SP freights in Soledad Canyon, not to mention another Spielberg movie, Radio Flyer, which offers some brief SP action at Novato, CA. None of the above should be considered great railroad movies. But these movies are special for having captured moments of what was then ordinary railroading and unknowlingly preserving it for the enjoyment of railfans for decades to come.

One of the more unique movies which captured long-ago railroading and made it central to the story was Timberjack. Released at about the same time as Bad Day at Black Rock and Living it Up, Timberjack was your typical western/action pic, but set against the backdrop of logging and mountain railroading in western Montana. Lengthy scenes of log trains, powered as I recall by Shays. How many motion pictures do you know of with geared steam?!

Anyway, I didn't see Timberjack in the 100 Greatest... mag when I flipped through it at the store. Someone please tell me that Danger Lights at least made the cut. It's one of the few movies ever made that really was about, or at least centered around, railroading. Vintage MILW no less.

[jeffrey]

Danger Lights is #79.

I think a lot of great railroad movies and documentaries where left out or not considered or just where not known to the judges. I agree that there appears to be more good movies that have trains in them that made the cut than great movies about trains. If a sequel  is published to this issue, hopefully the next100 chosen will be more about trains. By the way it reads on "A note from the publisher....." on page 6, it sounds like the Trains staff picked the the line up,  but in my opinion got derailed in the subject matter.

[wallywalkabout]

"Support Your Local Gunfighter" had great shots of the historic "Durango - Silverton" railroad in located in south western Colorado. The movie stars Jamer Garner and Suzanne Pleshette and co-starring Jack Elam and Harry Morgan. The best railroad shots were at the begining and at the ending of the movie. The movie itself is great!!

"Breakheart Pass" gets my vote for the BEST train movie. In my opinion it deserved a lot better than a "40" rating; 99% of the movie involved the train.

If tramways counted, "Where Eagles Dare" has some great shots.

[oltmannd]

How about "Narrow Margin" with Gene Hackman?

[Paul_D_North_Jr]

I haven't seen the booklet yet either, so what follows could be somewhat off-base, but here goes -

David P. Morgan wrote a review of The Train, Von Ryan's Express, and Cat Ballou - http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0059017 - in the same issue of Trains in 1965.  As I recall his summary, it was something like - ''Frank Sinatra ['Von Ryan'] doesn't look like a railroad man, but he's supposed to be Army Air Force anyway; Burt Lancaster did look like a railroader - as he should, because he was supposed to be an SNCF official [Societe Nationale Chemin de Fer = 'National Railways' of France, if I'm remembering that and my high school French anyways near right]; and he didn't like the hokeyed-up tourist trains or the plot in Cat Ballou, but - ''Jane Fonda in an upper is compensation of sorts''. 

The approach of combining the movie experts and the train experts is a worthy one, I think.  Even if they missed on some, I expect that the result is better than if it had been done by either one alone.  Compare with computer application software that is developed and implemented by a team of computer code writers in conjunction with the actual users, as contrasted with software that is developed by either group in isolation from and without the benefit of review and input from the other - yecchh. 

Some others that may or may not have made the cut, and will fit into one category or the other:

Scalplock (1966)- http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0060943/ - about building a railroad in the 1800's.  It was the pilot for a short-lived TV series, The Iron Horse.  How could you not like it ?

Out of Africa (1985) - http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0089755 - mostly the British-style train through the African veldt or savanna near the Great Rift Valley in the opening credits, but the scenery is so magnificent and the sequence so richly photographed that it should be available as a screen saver of some kind. 

The Borgia Stick (1967) - http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0061419/ - Filmed on location in New York City, the New York Central's suburban commuter service is the background to parts of this one - supposedly the first 'made for TV' movie !  The climax takes place at Spuyten Duyvil, as I recall - it may be 40 years since I last saw it, whether or not it is credited or attributed as such. 

This Property Is Condemned (1966) - http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0061089/ - A railroad official, Owen Legate - Robert Redford - comes to Dodson, Mississippi to shut down much of the town's railway (town's main income), etc.

- Paul North.

 

[jeffhergert]

jeffrey

Danger Lights is #79.

I think a lot of great railroad movies and documentaries where left out or not considered or just where not known to the judges. I agree that there appears to be more good movies that have trains in them that made the cut than great movies about trains. If a sequel  is published to this issue, hopefully the next100 chosen will be more about trains. By the way it reads on "A note from the publisher....." on page 6, it sounds like the Trains staff picked the the line up,  but in my opinion got derailed in the subject matter.

I initially wasn't going to buy the issue, just from glancing at some of the ratings, but I broke down and did purchase it.  So here's my $9.95 worth.

If you read all of the note, and then look below, it shows the Reviews and Rankings by a movie critic.  I think because of this there is more weight given to how good the movie was overall, rather than railroad or train content.  Looking at the list and glancing at the reviews, some of those that appear is only by really stretching the railroad connection, IMHO.  

I can think of movies that I've seen (some I liked, some I didn't) that have more of a railroad connection, but weren't the best movies ever made that didn't make it.  The railroad scenes however, were believable.  That's what stands out to me.  Are the railroad scenes believable or at least plausible? 

There are some on the list that I like, but never really considered them train movies.  There are ones on the list that have a lot of train/railroad action, but some of the action is hard to swallow.  (I think Runaway Train rated way too high, at least they have an aside "...but accuracy is obviously subordinate...)

I guess that's the trouble.  Each of us will view and rate things differently, for different reasons.  I haven't seen all the movies listed so can't completely comment on how well they were rated.  I know my list would be different, just as most others' list probably would be too. 

If for nothing else it was worth buying it to find some movies that I haven't seen, but would now like to. 

Jeff    

 

[twhite]

I picked up the book yesterday. 

I was glad to see films like THE TRAIN, BATTAILE DU RAIL, UNION PACIFIC, THE GENERAL, THE IRON HORSE, DANGER LIGHTS and THE GREAT LOCOMOTIVE CHASE--films that are essentially about railroads and railroading.   But I do agree that a lot of the films chosen were chosen for the films themselves, rather than any direct connection with trains. 

However, I think the critic did a good job over all in picking some excellent movies where trains offered a good 'dramatic' device.  I was very pleased that 3 hilarious Preston Sturges comedies--THE LADY EVE, SULLIVAN'S TRAVELS and THE PALM BEACH STORY made the cut--all three feature very funny train sequences.    And films like NARROW MARGIN and HItchock's THE LADY VANISHES are crackerjack suspense films that take place almost entirely on the confines of a passenger train--Hitchcock used trains extremely well as dramatic devices in a lot of his films. 

So all in all, I'm pretty pleased with the book.  I don't agree with all of the choices, and I think that some other films ABOUT trains could have made the cut, but by and large, the book is a very entertaining read. 

Tom

[Fla RailFan]

 I'll list "rails and ties", " or for a few laughs, how about  "Wild wild west". Always liked the TV series on that one.

Top 10 Greatest Train Movies

[MikeF90]

Old followup post, since I don't know where else to put it.

I came across a 1928 movie named 'Beggars Of Life' starring Louise Brooks and Wallace Beery. It is apparently in the public domain and can be downloaded from archive.org. More importantly for this audience, most of the action takes place on a train. Per IMDB, it was filmed along the Carrizo Gorge!

[Bob-Fryml]

While thumbing through "100 Greatest Train Movies," I did catch an error.  Director David Lean's 1957 magnum opus, Bridge On The River Kwai, was not photographed in Sri Lanka.  Among the last of the closing credits appearing with this great film, the producers acknowledge that it was shot in Ceylon.  It wasn't until 15-years later, in 1972, that Ceylon became Sri Lanka. 

[ButchKnouse]

Kind of splitting hairs there, aren't you Bob.